Stop the car?? This is a car chase! I went through considerable trouble
> to set this up. wrote:
Indy/Noam,
I had thought to add comments to Indys AAR, but then I thought again.
Assumptions/Comments/Questions not necessarly in that order.
Information gained from the AAR: Range reduction per level of stealth type max
range reduction per level of stealth
class 3 = 24 = 6 inches
class 2 = 16 = 4 inches
class 1 = 8 = 2 inches
stealth effect = 16% range reduction/level
also acts as a screen/level
Question: What is the mass/cost of this 'stealth' device.
(Is it a combined two screens and ECM package from FT/MT)
Comment: While I do experiments in the rules/weapons areas frequently,
I do not suprise the people I play with. I advise them that I am trying out
something new and that it may or may not work.
Comment: The 'offset arc' is a tactic for a 'one of' game and is not
usable for a campaign game. Indy, I would suggest you try a couple
of 'Trial by Combat' ships in the next meeting. The replacement of
the PDAF with Enhanced sensors will double the sensor range to 120 inches. (MY
house rules)
Comment: Fast ships, I like fast ships.
Sustained attack concept: I agree with the concept because it is logical to
presume the fighter can follow the target. (The same thing happened in the
'Forge Worlds' game.)
Awaiting a reply.
Bye for now,
> Information gained from the AAR:
Dunno, maybe I wasn't reading carefully, I thought it was reduction by
1/3?
> Comment: While I do experiments in the rules/weapons areas frequently,
Me too--but not necessarily *what* I'm trying!
> Comment: The 'offset arc' is a tactic for a 'one off' game and is not
Hey! Why not? That's standard for both Alarishi and Islamic ships (which
is why I made that comment about Noam buying Alarishi ships--Alarish
offers special discount rates to New Israel). Anyone whose concept is "circle
at range" rather than "bore in and kill" should consider it.
> Laserlight wrote:
XXX
Slightly different point of view, 2 stealth levels does equal 1/3
range reduction, 1 stealth level equals 1/6 range reduction. Both are
quite correct. JTL XXX
> >Comment: While I do experiments in the rules/weapons areas
XXX Agreed! JTL XXX
> >Comment: The 'offset arc' is a tactic for a 'one off' game and is not
XXX The use of this design assumes the use of sensors with a greater range
than the standard sensor (54 inches in FT, 60 inches in my house
rules.) The ability to detect an alter course to present the 'armed'
side of the ship to the enemy presumes course corrections made prior to
board entry. As far as I know, I am the only person who has made the
more advanced sensors have a greater range (and therefore value) in the game
(in house rules). What will happen the the Alarishi should you not start in a
head
on mode? What woud happen is your enemy has superior sensors,
detects and identifies your ships as Alarishi, checks his 'Janes in Space' and
maneuvers to close with the unarmed side of your fleet? (This presumes some or
all of my house sensor rules are in force.)
Comments?
Bye for now,
> John Leary wrote:
> Assumptions/Comments/Questions not necessarly in that order.
You don't know that, since you only have data for level-2 Stealth.
Unless
Noam's changed his mind after our discussion, level-1 reduces enemy
ranges by 1/4, level-2 by 1/3.
> also acts as a screen/level
Again unless Noam changed his mind, no it doesn't.
> Question: What is the mass/cost of this 'stealth' device.
Same as for screens of the same level.
> Comment: While I do experiments in the rules/weapons areas
According to Noam, he and Mk had been discussing this for a while
already. I don't think Mk was completely surprised by this device :-/
> Comment: The 'offset arc' is a tactic for a 'one of' game and is not
Wrong. It is perfectly useful in campaign battles, although it will lose
some of its efficiency after the first few encounters - but that's just
as true for other tactics. Once the enemy has learned how to cope, the
efficiency goes down.
Regards,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Noam's changed his mind after our discussion, level-1 reduces enemy
XXX
I admit errors. The device is even more ugly than I thought. JTL
XXX
> > also acts as a screen/level
XXX
His fighters with their Stealth-2 were acting as if they had 2
levels of screening, which made it a true pain to take them down. I got lucky
only once (see Turn 8).
This is Indys statement that generated my 'acts like a screen'
comment. (But then I probably forgot Indy was rolling the dice!
:-) )
Question(Noam/Indy): Is it safe to say that once the fighters got
inside the range of the ships defensive fire the 'stealth' went away and the
fighters were treated as normal (standard) fighters? JTL XXX
> > Question: What is the mass/cost of this 'stealth' device.
XXX WARNING, TWISTED LOGIC ZONE! Well, I guess the primary objection to the
device is partly in the name (Since it will cause confusion with the concept
of Stealth.) Second objection: This systems primary function is to reduce the
range of weapons on ALL enemy ships. This is accomplished without
a 'to hit' of any kind. This is an area effect system that does not have any
effect on friendly ships.
Suggestions: 1) Since this is more like a weapon system, it should have a 'to
hit'. (Like basic beams) 2) This weapon should have a range and be limited at
to the number of targets it can effect. (Like the number of FCS on the firing
ship.
Bye for now,
> John Leary wrote:
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> > > also acts as a screen/level
The *fighters* were acting as if they had 2 levels of screening. That's what
caused my comment about them not using the same mechanics as the *ships*.
IIRC, there was no comment about any screens reducing the damage inflicted on
the NI ships, but there are numerous complaints about not rolling higher than
a '3'...
> > > Question: What is the mass/cost of this 'stealth' device.
OK, I'll bite. What would "stealth" mean for you? Obviously something else
than making the ship harder to aquire (which is what this stealth version
represents, with a very simple mechanic), but I can't figure out
what...?
> Second objection: This systems primary function is to reduce the
Screens affects all enemy beam fire directed at the screened ship. This is
accomplished without a 'to hit' for the ship using screens. Armour affects all
enemy weapon fire except needles directed at the ship. This, too, is
accomplished without a 'to hit' for the armoured ship.
Thus, according to your logic, screens and armour are area effect systems;
they tend not to have any effect on friendly ships since you usually don't
fire at friendly ships.
Do you think that screens and armour also should have a 'to hit' roll of their
own and be limited to the number of targets it can affect?
The problem with this type of stealth is that it eats hull space *fast*. In
addition, unlike screens, you need powerful engines to benefit from the
stealth (because if you have lower thrust than your enemy, he'll close the
range and you don't benefit from your stealth hulls). These two combined mean
that a stealth ship either has a low number of hull boxes for its size, or few
weapons, or both.
I don't know if this stealth variant is balanced. Unfortunately the
NAC/NI battle doesn't say very much about that - the main conclusion you
can draw from it is that if you consistently roll low to-hit dice and
high treshold dice, you'll probably lose :-/
Regards,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> > Well, I guess the primary objection to the device is partly in
XXX Stealth is an attempt to reduce of eliminate the return from the target
(the stealth ship) so that the enemy cannot find the stealth ship or prevent
the enemy from acquiring a target lock for thier fire
control. In FT/MT/FB terms, stealth reduces the sensor range on the
ship so that it cannot acquire and therefore cannot fire. In the game the
stealth appears to have blocked all effective sensors on the affected ships
and placed the weapons systems in a 'local' fire control mode as all beam
weapons were reduced by
the same percentage. (I am fully aware that PSB may be used to
justify a great deal, but lets try for a reasonable extension of reality.
(Well, Mostly!) JTL XXX a target
> > Second objection: This systems primary function is to reduce the
This
> is accomplished without a 'to hit' for the ship using screens. Armour
This,
> too, is accomplished without a 'to hit' for the armoured ship.
XXX Nobody bothers to roll the 'to hit' for screens and armor on thier
own ship because to miss you need a zero on 1D6. :-) JTL
XXX
> Thus, according to your logic, screens and armour are area effect
XXX You are correct, USUALLY I don't fire at friendly ships.
'Area affect systems', I can accept that. If you fire at one of my ships that
has a screen and roll a four, did you fail to hit?
or did you hit and fail to damage? In either case the screen did
not affect your weapons or you ability to fire them. The stealth
actually changes the performance of the weapons on all enemy ships. JTL XXX
> Do you think that screens and armour also should have a 'to hit' roll
> The problem with this type of stealth is that it eats hull space
XXX I am looking forward to the next edition of stealth ships, the thrust 6, 2
stealth, 2 screen and all weapons in the AS or AP area.
These should be lots of fun. JTL
XXX
These two
> combined mean that a stealth ship either has a low number of hull
XXX
Agreed. After all it was Indy rolling the dice! :-) JTL
XXX
> Regards,
First: I misremembered the Mass required for stealth - thought it was
the
same as Screens when it should be twice that. Of course it isn't - that
would make it rather powerful :-/ Sorry 'bout that.
> John Leary wrote:
> > OK, I'll bite. What would "stealth" mean for you? Obviously
Bingo. You have just described *exactly* how I envision Noam's stealth system.
The additional assumption it makes is that the stealth isn't
perfect - get close enough, and the enemy no longer has enough
difficulties to target your ship - and the weapon damage mechanism
described in my next paragraph.
> In the game the stealth appears to have blocked all effective
Depends on how you consider weapon fire to occur.
My view - biased by Starfire, but that's rather unavoidable in my case
-
is that a weapon's effect is gradually attenuated over range. This
attenuatioin is partially offset by accurate enough targetting. "1 point
of damage" isn't necessarily a *single* hit - it may just as well be
several minor hits, combining to make up 1 point... and if your targetting is
poor enough that you can't get enough hits on target to inflict that single
point, the weapon is no longer able to inflict damage. A larger weapon with
better focussing systems (which is one of
the reasons why a Class-3 inflicts less damage per Mass than a Class-2
at
close range - the focussing systems take up a bigger percentage of the
weapon's mass) and more juice in each sub-shot to begin with suffers a
lower attenuation rate, and is thus able to inflict damage at longer ranges.
This explanationi also helps explain how the NAC could see the NI ships
at all when they were outside maximum weapons range - they just couldn't
get a good enough fix on them to hit them with enough shots to make it
count :-/
> (I am fully aware that PSB may be used to
See above.
> > Screens affects all enemy beam fire directed at the screened ship.
This
> > is accomplished without a 'to hit' for the ship using screens.
Armour
> > affects all enemy weapon fire except needles directed at the ship.
This,
> > too, is accomplished without a 'to hit' for the armoured ship.
There are games where you need to roll to see if the enemy fire strikes
an area where your armour is already damaged - FASA's Renegade Legion
series, for example. This is in effect a "to-hit" roll for your own
armour - with a very real chance to fail, I might add :-/
How realistic it is? Well... apart from mile-long starships not being
very realistic to begin with, the thought that the armour integrity would
fail all over a mile-long starship all at once strikes me as rather
ridiculous .-)
> 'Area affect systems', I can accept that. If you fire at one
Wrong. It didn't affect my ability to fire the weapon, but it most certainly
affected the weapon's ability to inflict damage. Same as the
stealth does in my description above - as I see it it, too, affects the
weapon's ability to inflict damage, but not the enemy's ability to fire
the weapon. (You can *always* fire your weapons - but if the enemy is
outside the range at which the weapons can inflict meaningful damage (at least
1 DP), there's no point in rolling the dice!)
> The stealth actually changes the performance of the weapons on all >
enemy ships.
So does the screen - unless you exclude the ability of your weapon to
inflict damage on enemy ships from its performance, which I don't. Each level
of screening reduces the average damage per dice from enemy beam weapons by
20.8%, and therefore affects the performance of the beam weapons on all enemy
ships which fire on the screened ship.
> I am looking forward to the next edition of stealth ships, the
Thrust 6, 2 levels of stealth, 2 levels of screen... that's 60% of the total
Mass before you include the hull structure. I hope you don't want any weapons
on this ship, 'cuz if you take a strong enough hull to make
those screens pay for themselves (ie, Average or better - Weak and
Fragile hulls prefer armour instead) you won't be able to mount very
many... especially since you need long-ranged weapons (Class-3 or
higher)
to benefit fully from the stealth :-/
Now let's bring on those thrust-8 pulse-torp-armed DDs. You can't run
fast enough, you don't have enough weapons to take them out fast enough, and
I'm not Indy so they'll probably hit you OK once I get within
range... :-)
(OK, OK, Indy - I *know* you've hit with pulse torps at least four times
during the Showdown battle ;-)
> Noam wrote:
> Stealth Tech
Yep, my wrong.
> Stealth level 1 reduces enemy range bands by 1/4. Stealth level 2
To answer John's argument here: In Vector movement Stealth-1 and
Stealth-2 both reduce the SM aquisition ranges to 2".
> PDS anti-ship at 5" or 4").
Makes sense, yes.
> PSB: Special hull construction and materials, sacrificing hull
Well... put it like this: A stealthed ship needs at least Thrust-6 to be
able to keep the range open (unless you're fighting the NSL, and IMO/E,
of course). If it has lower Thrust, it won't get many free shots before being
overtaken by enemy cruisers and light units, or even by capital ships.
A Strong hull with Thrust-6 and Stealth-1 has used up 80% of its Mass
before putting on FTL and weapons. A Strong hull with Thrust-6 and
Stealth-2, or a Super hull with Thrust-6 and Stealth-1, has to choose
between weapons and FTL drive. Somehow I think the restriction isn't really
necessary even though the PSB makes sense.
> 2) Stealth Fighter - Stealth fighters are +12pts/group and are the
Hm. See below for my thoughts on the fighter costs. 'Course, I think the
standard *heavy* fighters are a bit too cheap as it is :-/ I fully agree
with John's comment about the Super-Stealth not being balanced.
> This is more
Yep.
> 3) Stealth System (not tested). ECM version of stealth with same
Mass
> similar to screen, cost ~ 2x screen or more.
I'll take a look at it tomorrow.
> Ships with stealth system
Other PSB: It's no point trying to hide if your own scanner and screen
emissions allow the enemy to pin-point you <g>
[snip]
> As for fighter-rerolls, I always thought of PDS fire as abstracting a
[Statistics alert - the figures below aren't that influenced by my
opinions, but the interpretations of them certainly are. Jon, I'm sorry I
didn't look into this for the FB1 - it seems I should have :-/ ]
Not at all. A carrier-based standard fighter squadron costs effectively
63 pts (if you assume a Fragile-hulled, Thrust-1, FTL-capable carrier;
the cost rises fast if you make the carrier tougher) to bring to the
battle. A heavy fighter squadron costs another 12 points - ie, a cost
penalty of at most 19% (and often a lot less, depending on the carrier
design).
The squadron takes on average ~21% less damage from PDS if the re-roll
isn't reduced by the Heavy status. 21% less casualties means that just
above 25% more of them survive to attack the enemy - ie, on average
heavy fighters inflict ~25% more damage on the enemy *in their first attack*.
They also usually survive to make more attacks than standard fighters do, so
the total damage inflicted by those heavies will on average be more than 25%
higher than that done by the standards.
If the re-roll *is* reduced, the Heavy squadron takes 25% less
casualties from PDS than a standard squadron does (ie, inflict on average 33%
more damage), for a cost which is definitely less than 25% (not to mention
33%) higher than that of a standard squadron. Again, this doesn't include the
subsequent attacks where the heavies will improve further on this damage
ratio.
In other words, the Heavy squadron costs more, but it takes so much
smaller losses that on average it is a better buy - a much better buy
than the standard one.
A Super-Stealth fighter pays an additional 24 pts (at most +38%, but
usually less depending on carrier design) but take 42% less casualties
(or 50% less, with reduced re-rolls), which means 70-100% more damage
inflicted in that initial attack.
Assuming that the standard fighters are close to correctly priced, I
don't see any difficulty at all to justify the +12 pts cost for heavy
fighters if you use unmodified PDS re-rolls - indeed, I think it is too
cheap and should be closer to +21 pts per squadron instead.
If you let the "heavy" modification apply to the re-rolls, I'd up the
cost to at least +36 pts per heavy squadron. That's a lot, but it is
*less* than the damage bonus they give you against starships and
non-interceptor fighters - their real value would be somewhere above 44
pts; I've given them a rebate to compensate for enemy interceptors and
Class-1 batteries. The Super-Stealth squadron... well, ignoring those
Class-1s and Interceptors they'd be worth somewhere above 63 pts more
than a normal fighter squadron.
I don't expect Noam to agree with this analysis, but I wouldn't be
surprised if Indy does ;-)
Regards,
> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
[snip]
> If the re-roll *is* reduced, the Heavy squadron takes 25% less
We had some discussion over Heavy fighters a few weeks ago concerning "Class 1
PDS". The consensus was to apply the game effects literally, ie:
"rolls of "4" have no effect when under PDAF/ADAF or Fighter weapons
fire."
Applying this also affects any rerolls, since that still classifies as PDS
fire.
> MWS wrote:
> > If you let the "heavy" modification apply to the re-rolls, I'd up
concerning "Class 1
I know. I voted on it, too.
> PDS". The consensus was to apply the game effects literally, ie:
The re-roll rule wasn't discussed, however. It is the "treat them as if
they had level-1 screens" problem again - screens do not normally modify
re-rolls. And it does have a certain effect on how the heavy fighters
should be priced, though not as much as I panicked yesterday :-7
More on this in another post, though.